Brick's Addiction, page 1
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Copyright© 2022 Winter Sloane
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0630-6
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
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This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BRICK’S ADDICTION
Ruthless Reapers MC, 2
Winter Sloane
Copyright © 2022
Chapter One
After swiping a table clean, Rose McCoy tapped one foot on the scarred wooden floor and checked the time. Close to midnight. Finally, her shift had come to an end. Exhaustion crept into her bones. She could barely keep herself awake, and her feet ached.
Nicky Goodman, her boss and the owner of One for the Road bar, nodded to the only occupied table in the room. Rose followed sighed and walked toward Keegan Butler, the town drunk. In his late forties, balding, and sporting a beer belly, Keegan was also a regular at One for the Road.
Keegan also happened to be the mayor’s only brother. Nicky might be an ex-biker covered in tattoos, but he couldn’t just toss Keegan outside like the common riff-raff. Only Rose could sweet-talk Keegan into leaving, to convince him he left of his own accord.
“It’s past closing time, Keegan,” she reminded him. “Go home.” She gently gripped him by the elbow, ignoring the lecherous look he gave her. Ever since she entered puberty, she’d gotten used to men gawking at her chest area and her curves. Keegan might be a noisy drunk, but he was always a coward.
Keegan cursed and grunted for a good ten minutes before he slapped a couple of bills on the table. He allowed Rose to lead him to the door. Before he left, Keegan gave her left ass a squeeze. She glowered at him, but he only flashed her a cheeky grin before stumbling out.
Rose didn’t take insult. Growing up in a trailer with an abusive and drunk father who couldn’t hold down a job and a brother who always got into trouble all the time, she developed a pretty thick skin. Keegan was harmless most of the time. Rose had experienced worse.
After helping Nicky clean the place, they closed up. Without saying another word, Nicky walked Rose to her car, even though the parking lot was just a short distance away from the bar. She appreciated the kind gesture. Castle Falls could be dicey at night.
Nicky had no designs on her. Her boss had been happily married to his husband of ten years, Raul, and they even had two sons together. Whoever said chivalry was dead? Rose thought.
Nicky passed Rose an envelope containing her latest pay before they parted ways. If she had to choose a favorite among her three jobs, she’d have to pick working for Nicky. Sure, the hours might be long, but the pay was good. The customers always tipped generously.
“See you tomorrow, Rose,” he said.
“Good night, Nicky,” she said.
Rose slid behind the driver’s seat of her second-hand red Chevrolet. The paint peeled and looked faded in some places, and her car almost looked more pink than red. Her ride also had its share of nicks and dents. She slid her key in, and the engine gave out a weak sputter. Rose expelled a breath.
“Don’t you dare die on me now,” she said.
Frustration welled up inside her. Money was tight right now. She couldn’t afford to send her ride in for repairs.
All she wanted to do was head home, take a hot shower after checking on Stefan, then go to bed. Then repeat the same old cycle all over again the next day. No use thinking about the direction where her life was heading. At the moment, it was nowhere.
It wasn’t like she had a choice. Her brother Donny seemed keen on walking the same crooked path their father did.
She tried the engine again. On the third try, it worked. Thankful for small mercies, Rose navigated out of the bar parking lot and headed home. One for the Road was located on the outskirts of Castle Falls, a twenty-minute drive to the trailer park. No streetlights lit the way home, so she had to rely on her own lights.
The rumble of motorcycles behind her made her grip the steering wheel tight. Panic almost set in, but she refused to let the emotion swallow her up.
She took deep breaths and stopped the car at the side of the road, where she killed the lights and her engine, then silently prayed the bikers would ride past her. She peered outside the windows. Her breath caught when three laughing loons on bikes roared past from where she was.
The sound of a gunshot made her jump in her seat. Rose bit down on her lower lip to prevent herself from giving her position away. Some drunk rider must’ve fired it. She waited with bated breath. Nothing else happened.
About twenty years ago, the Black Dogs MC rode into Castle Falls and declared the town their territory. Rose was four at that time. They never left. Instead, the motorcycle club continued to be a plague in town, and here they would stay. Rumor had it the club lined the pockets of the local police and even the mayor. Corruption had been rampant everywhere.
Anyone could be bought. Her own father and even Donny worked odd jobs for the MC. Rose chose to keep her head down like everyone else. Deeming the roads safe again, she turned on the engine. For a second, she wondered if her baby would fail her again for the night. It didn’t.
Rose let out a breath of relief. She almost thought she had to walk home, but she managed to reach home without any further incident. Home was a single-wide trailer that was slowly falling apart. Like the rest of her life, it was sorely in need of repairs.
Janice, her neighbor and babysitter, must’ve heard her come in because the teenager left the house. On her shoulder, Janice carried Stefan, Donny’s kid.
Someone had left Stefan on their doorstep two months ago along with an angry handwritten note. When Rose confronted her brother about it, he shrugged it off and said both the baby and the note were from an angry ex. Realizing she had another mouth to feed had skyrocketed her stress levels.
When she asked Donny what his plans for Stefan were, his answer had always been the same. He didn’t know. Rose brought up the notion of adoption once or twice, because as much as she’d grown to love that little boy, neither Rose nor Donny could give the kid the life he deserved.
“It’s 1:00 AM, Rose,” Janice said in an exasperated voice.
“I know. I’m really sorry,” Rose said.
Janice handed Stefan to her, and he didn’t even wake. Rose wanted to give him a kiss, but she felt grimy. “Sorry, could you hold him again for a second? I need to pay you.”
Janice complied. Rose retrieved the envelope containing her pay from the car. She paid Janice a little extra for the overtime, but Janice studied her for a moment, then handed the extra bills back. Janice might just be a senior in high school, but she was perceptive for someone her age. A good kid who reminded Rose of herself a long time ago.
“Could you look after him tomorrow night as well?” Rose asked her. Most of the time, Janice said yes to babysitting. According to the kid, it was easy money and Stefan was delightful to look after, but Rose knew exams were coming soon. What would she do then?
She juggled three jobs and hardly had any free time left. Rose worked herself to the bone so much she wouldn’t be surprised one day if she’d simply collapse and die. A morbid thought. Who would take care of Stefan then?
God knew where Donny was. Probably running jobs for the MC, only to flush all that money earned down the drain in a single night of gambling. The Black Dogs MC ran illegal gambling dens all over the city. They owned her brother, and he didn’t even realize it.
“Tomorrow then,” Janice agreed.
“Did Donny come by?” she asked.
Rose had instructed Janice to text or call her immediately if her brother or any of his biker “friends” dropped by the trailer. Rose used the word friends loosely because she wasn’t blind. Those bikers only saw her brother as a pawn to be used, then discarded when they no longer needed him.
Donny had already gone to jail twice for his employers. Never once did they lift a finger to help him. Rose had to bail him every single time.
“Nope, haven’t seen him this week.” Janice handed Stefan back to Rose. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that,” Rose admitted.
They bid each other good night, and Rose retreated inside the trailer. She remembered to engage all five locks on the front door. One could never be too careful, and with a baby to care for, Rose had become extra paranoid. She sniffed at Stefan. Janice had given him a bath. Good.
Rose set Stefan down on the cot in her room. She looked at the kid for a few moments. Stefan had inherited the same dark curls she and Donny had, but he had brown eyes instead of blue.
“What am I going to do with you, kid?” she whispered.
For now, her system worked as long as she could find a trustworthy babysitter for Stefan. What happened when he finally started school? God knew how she’d be able to pay for his education. Her brother and father might’ve not been there for her, but the last thing she wanted was to abandon this kid. Rose had to exhaust all her options first.
She took a shower. The incident on the road had woken her up. She shook a little as she put her head under the warm water. N o use thinking about that either. So far, Rose had stuck with one philosophy throughout her entire life—live one day at a time. Still, she couldn’t ignore her mounting problems.
How could she provide the kid in her room a decent future when she wasn’t even sure of her own? Rose started toweling herself off when she heard that monstrous noise again. Vroom vroom, followed by the sound of men laughing and yelling at each other.
She froze. Rose thought she imagined all that noise at first, but it only grew louder. Rose quickly dressed. Instead of her usual nightwear—usually a big shirt, she put on jeans and a shirt. Then she made her way to Stefan. All the noise woke him up and he started crying.
Rose bundled him in his favorite blue blanket and gathered him to her chest. She exited her bedroom. Thank God she had closed all the curtains in the living room. She could make out harsh lights through the window and dark shapes. How many of them were out there? She swallowed. Fear gripped her tight.
There was only one way in and one way out of the trailer. That was through the front door.
“Donny, you thieving, no-good son of a bitch, come out here and face us like a man!” someone yelled.
“You think you can steal from the MC and get away with it?” another drunken voice yelled.
Rose wondered if these were the same bikers that passed her on the way home.
She shoved aside her rising anxiety and tried to make sense of their words. So they were looking for Donny. God. What had her idiot brother done now? What were the chances they’d go away if she and Stefan kept quiet? Stefan sniffled and brawled.
“Shush,” she told Stefan. He wouldn’t stop crying. “Please, Stefan. We can’t aggravate them any further.”
“Is that a baby I hear in there, Donny?” a biker asked. “Didn’t know a dickless coward like you could father a kid.”
The bikers laughed at that.
Sweat trickled down her face. It soaked the back of her shirt.
Something crashed against the windows. Amber liquid sprayed over the window. She recognized that liquid well enough. Rose served plenty of it at the bar. A beer bottle. She sucked in a breath. They were starting to throw things at the trailer now?
“Boys, if we can’t convince him to get out, we’ll just have to flush him out,” yelled one of the bikers.
Her heart nearly stopped at those words. Rose touched the edge of the curtain and took a peek. One biker held out a beer bottle, the top covered in flames. A Molotov cocktail? Rose’s heart was in her throat. The biker spread his legs apart, then entered a baseball-throwing position. Without another warning, he tossed the makeshift bomb right at the window Rose was standing in front of.
Chapter Two
“Where you heading, all geared up?” asked Razor.
The other man eyed the shotgun Brick had slung over his shoulder. Razor also happened to be the Ruthless Reapers MC’s sergeant-at-arms. He had a keen eye for weapons and probably knew Brick had a second gun on him and a knife strapped to his boot for emergencies.
Being the club Vice President, Brick didn’t have to answer Razor. He outranked the other biker after all, but Razor probably asked out of curiosity’s sake.
“Got a lead on the assholes who stole our shipment three days ago,” Brick said.
Razor raised one pierced eyebrow. “You going after the Black Dogs MC scum? Alone?”
“I wanted to check if the information’s solid first,” Brick said.
King, the club President, had always been the reckless one. King picked Brick as his second-in-command for being level-headed and calm, but this was personal.
The Ruthless Reapers MC operated out of Grace, a former mining town out in the mountains. Serenity Hill and Castle Falls, the two neighboring towns, were territories controlled by two other rival MC groups. The Ruthless Reapers MC had a truce with the Chaos Riders MC, a working relationship even. The Black Dogs MC had always been the ones to watch out for. Like feral dogs, they went after enemies and allies alike.
The attack on their delivery convoy had been a quick and dirty operation. The theft had occurred during nighttime. The culprits didn’t wear any cuts with recognizable patches, but Brick knew the Black Dogs MC were responsible. His nephew Trigger had managed to identify one attacker as a member of the Black Dogs MC.
“Something’s wrong with this picture,” Razor mused out loud as he thoughtfully rubbed his unshaven chin. “One, you could’ve sent a prospect on a simple scouting job. Two, you’re packing. That tells me you’re up to something no good.”
“Trigger ended up in the hospital because of those assholes. He’s still in intensive care,” Brick said with a growl.
Brick thought two, three steps ahead most of the time. King and his MC brothers relied on his quick thinking to get the club out of trouble plenty of times, but this was different. Family was involved. No strategy was needed.
Trigger was his little sister’s only son. Tasha died tragically young, caught in a crossfire between the club and another rival group. Brick’s father and grandfather had both been MC men. It was in their blood, but after Tasha died, Brick didn’t want Trigger to follow in the same footsteps of his father, uncle, or grandfather. The boy refused to back down.
God knew Brick had put Trigger through hell. He’d sent Trigger on plenty of unsavory jobs just to dissuade him from joining the club, but Trigger had been adamant about his path. He’d gone from prospect to patch, but look where his first real job for the club as a member landed him.
“Brick? You there?” Razor asked.
“What were you saying?” Brick’s thoughts had wandered off in the middle of the conversation.
“I asked you what King thinks of this revenge mission of yours,” Razor said.
Brick held the other man’s gaze. He and Razor had their share of differences over the years. Razor reminded him too much of King. He liked getting his hands dirty far too much, but the MC needed all kinds of talents. Brick had learned to respect Razor was good at what he did.
“I told King what he expected to hear,” Brick said. King was out of town on another business deal with another group. That meant Brick was in charge. If he knew what Brick intended, King would probably call a meeting and vote on it. That would take too long.
“And your information’s solid?” Razor asked.
“My source tells me Dragon and his pals will be paying some poor asshole at the Castle Falls Trailer Park a personal visit,” Brick said.
“You sure Dragon’s the man we’re after?” Razor pressed.
Brick had done his research or rather, he told the resident MC hacker to find out all he could about the members of the Black Dogs MC. Brick and King already had dealings in the past with Rat, the President. They also knew Rat’s other top lieutenants on sight.
Dragon was a new enforcer from another Black Dogs MC chapter. He certainly was ambitious and stupid enough to think he could get away with stealing from their MC. Men like that needed to be taught a lesson. Besides, the Ruthless Reapers MC’s reputation was at stake. They had to hit back sooner or later.
“Trigger identified him through his prison tattoos,” Brick said.
“Then there’s nothing else I want to ask. I’m coming with you,” Razor said, rising to his feet.
Brick finally noticed the other biker had his favorite revolvers strapped to his belt. So Razor was planning on coming along with him all this time?
Razor could never really sit still. Brick decided to avoid an argument. He only had a short window of time to enact his vengeance. Getting Dragon all alone would be tricky, and Brick didn’t need to wage a war on the entire MC. He’d settle for killing the crew responsible for putting Trigger and three other MC brothers in the hospital.
“Fine. I could use the backup,” Brick said. “But it has to be just the two of us. I need this done fast and quiet. No messes. My source tells me there will only be four of them tonight.”
“Four’s easy,” Razor agreed. “Let’s get to it.”
They exited the noisy clubhouse and walked to their bikes in the parking lot. Brick got behind his Harley, and Razor let him lead the way. Brick always loved the ride. Nothing could compare to being on his bike and feeling the wind on his face and beard, the powerful hum of the Harley engine between his thighs.
